HPB-SB-14-39: Difference between revisions

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{{Style P-HPB SB. Title continued|“The Perfect Way” and its Critics.|14-38}}

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The ''Leisure Hour'', which once employed Mr. Irving Bishop to write some sorry stuff about Spiritualism, now allows a writer to advertise him as a thought-reader, “the son of a landed proprietor in New York (!) and godson of the celebrated Washington Irving,” as if these latter statements, if ever so accurate, had anything to do with the matter. This psychically curious son of a landed proprietor has, it seems, succeeded at the Deanery, Southampton, in reading Sir J. Lubbock’s mind so far as to give with approximate correctness the number of a £5 note. This he did with only momentary contact, and practically without any possibility of direction by muscular movements, or by any unconscious indication. Dr. W. B. Carpenter, in an undated letter, propounds his satisfaction with Mr. Bishop’s “remarkable power of thought-reading”—a satisfaction, he unkindly adds, shared by “a number of the professors of the Edinburgh and Glasgow Universities.” Those professors, I should fancy, are indeed acquainted with Mr. Bishop’s “remarkable powers,” which extend far beyond mere thought-reading. Probably he is an ordinary medium (if one may venture to apply such an epithet as “ordinary” to such a person). If he exercised his powers as other mediums do, he would be roundly abused by the Carpenters and Lubbocks. But, as he goes about abusing Spiritualism, he is patted on the back by these eminent seekers after truth, to whom that precious possession is valuable only in proportion as it squares with their preconceived opinions.

{{Style P-Signature custom|M.A. ({{Style S-Small capitals|Oxon.}})|align=right|1 style=plain}}

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